Why Russia, China, and Iran Love Linux and Open Source

Linux 30 Comments
"At the end of 2010, the 'open-source' software movement, whose activists tend to be fringe academics and ponytailed computer geeks, found an unusual ally: the Russian government. Vladimir Putin signed a 20-page executive order requiring all public institutions in Russia to replace proprietary software, developed by companies like Microsoft and Adobe, with free open-source alternatives by 2015."
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The Open-Source ATI Driver Is Becoming a Lot Faster

  Submitted by Michael Linux 39 Comments
"Now that the kernel mode-setting page-flipping for the ATI Radeon DRM kernel module has been merged into the Linux 2.6.38 kernel and the respective bits have been set in the xf86-video-ati DDX, we're in the process of running new open-source ATI graphics benchmarks under Linux. Our initial results (included in this article) show these latest improvements to cause some major performance boosts for the open-source ATI driver as it nears the level of performance of the proprietary Catalyst driver."
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Extensive Benchmarks of Amazon’s EC2 Compute Cloud

  Submitted by vodoomoth Internet No Comments
"Last month we delivered our first benchmarks of the Amazon EC2 Cloud, but those initial tests were limited to just a few of their cloud computing instances due to failures with the Ubuntu EC2 operating system on their other compute instances. Earlier this month we then showed how the Amazon EC2 Micro was comparable to a Nokia N900 and Intel Atom, but now we have a more exhaustive comparison complete of all major Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud types."
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‘Dropping H.264 from Chrome a Step Backward for Openness’

Internet 50 Comments
"The promise of HTML5's video tag was a simple one: to allow web pages to contain embedded video without the need for plugins. With the decision to remove support for the widespread H.264 codec from future versions of Chrome, Google has undermined this widely-anticipated feature. The company is claiming that it wants to support 'open codecs' instead, and so from now on will support only two formats: its own WebM codec, and Theora." Sorely disappointed in Ars' Peter Bright. Us geeks reviled web developers for sticking to Internet Explorer when Firefox came onto the scene, and yet now, the same arguments we used to revile are used to keep H.264 in the saddle. How us mighty geeks have fallen.
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38 Billion Spam Emails: a Sign of Things to Come?

  Submitted by HAL2001 Internet 4 Comments
Over the last twelve months, AppRiver quarantined more than 38 billion spam messages, almost double the amount quarantined just two years ago. Of that total, 450 million messages contained viruses. To make things even worse, phishing techniques showed increasing sophistication and are likely to be ever-present during this year. Also, the ZeuS botnet remains highly dangerous as it continues to target financial information while social networking sites continue to be the prime locations for cyber criminals to prey on the naive and unsuspecting.
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Third-Party Software Responsible For Most Vulnerabilities

  Submitted by HAL2001 Privacy, Security 10 Comments
Most people owning a PC are familiar with Microsoft's patching process - it's easy and it's there. For a lot of them, it also gives the impression that Microsoft's products are chock-full of flaws. But, according to Stefan Frei, Research Analyst Director with Secunia, it's not the vulnerabilities in Microsoft's products we should worry about, but those in third-party software. 55 percent of the end-point users have more than 66 programs from more than 22 vendors installed on their systems. Of the top 50 software used, 26 are developed by Microsoft, and the remaining 24 by 14 other vendors.
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Top 20 IT Tools of 2010

In the News 2 Comments
InfoWorld has released its list of the top 20 IT tools of 2010, based on extensive testing from its Test Center analysts. From IDEs, to virtualized desktop infrastructure kits, to parallel-processing CPUs, to mobile platforms, and workstations, 2010's best hardware and software products belie a distinctive shift in IT, one in which conflicting pulls on computing platforms are "drawing them to the far ends of the spectrum: more applications and services being delivered from virtual servers and large clouds, while on the other end, ever-smaller client endpoints taking a larger role in business and in the daily lives of consumers. Systems near the midpoint - workstations, desktops, and laptops - are becoming page two news, whereas they used to represent the key cradles of innovation."
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10 Questions for John Gruber Regarding H.264, WebM

Internet 147 Comments
With yesterday's news that Google will be dropping H.264 support from the Chrome web browser, the internet was split in half. One one side, there's people who applaud the move, who are happy that Google is pushing an open, royalty-free and unencumbered video codec (irrespective of Google's motivation). On the other side, there are the H.264 supporters, who believe that H.264 is the one and only choice for HTML5 video. One of the most vocal and public figures in the latter group is John Gruber. Following his five questions for Google, here are ten questions for Gruber about WebM, H.264, and standards on the web.
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Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, EMC consortium plan withdrawn

  Submitted by Amy Bennett Legal 6 Comments
"Early in December Microsoft, Apple, EMC and Oracle notified the German regulator that they planned to form CPTN Holdings with a view to purchasing 882 of Novell's patents. But the filing was withdrawn (Rucknahme) on Dec. 30. No reason was given for the withdrawal by German authorities, but it is likely voluntary as authorities would not yet have had time to investigate the proposal."
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Verizon to Carry iPhone 4 in the US

Wireless 35 Comments
While everybody outside of the US has been able to mix and match iPhone and wireless operator, the iPhone was still tied to a single carrier in the US. Today, Verizon and Apple announced the much-hyped Verizon iPhone 4. While the rest of the world collectively yawns, this is good news for American consumers, since there will be more competition, and thus, more choice. Edit: Eh, the other way around. First choice, then competition.
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Piracy Websites Generate 53 Billion Visits Per Year

  Submitted by HAL2001 Legal 27 Comments
"A sampling of only 22 brands revealed that websites offering pirated digital content and counterfeit goods generate more than 53 billion visits per year, according to a study released today by MarkMonitor. It is estimated that the annual worldwide economic impact of online piracy and counterfeiting reaches $200 billion. Among the study's findings were that 67 percent of sites suspected of hosting pirated content and 73 percent of sites categorized as 'counterfeit' were hosted in North America or Western Europe."
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How to Improve Portability Across Personal Computers

Graphics 38 Comments
Nowadays smartphones, tablets and desktop/laptop computers are all siblings. They use the same UI paradigms and follow the same idea of a programmable and flexible machine that's available to everyone. Only their hardware feature set and form factor differentiate them from each other. In this context, does it still make sense to consider them as separate devices as far as software development is concerned? Wouldn't it be a much better idea to consider them as multiple variations of the same concept, and release a unified software platform which spreads across all of them? This article aims at describing what has been done in this area already, and what's left to do.
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